


Haunt Me

by Supernova95



Series: Too Late [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - Fandom, DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-14 14:30:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supernova95/pseuds/Supernova95
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim died a hero, or at least that's what they thought had happened...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mirrors

Tim didn't really know how he got back to his room at the manor, he guessed he was hit by that alien blast ray pretty hard, and he hit the wall pretty hard too. Someone must have brought him back to the cave, and then up to the manor itself. That made sense.

What didn't make sense though was Dick tentatively opening the door, then proceeding to walk straight towards his bed and curl himself round a pillow, completely ignoring Tim. Dick's face was ashen and stained with tears. Why had he been crying? Tim's okay right? It's not like he died, they got him to Alfred, who worked his magic and Tim woke up without a sore bone in his body.

He older man started silently sobbing a hiccupping tearless sob. Like he had no more tears to shed. Tim was about to go put his arms around his older brother when his door opened for a second time. Jason, who had only recently come back to the manor, to the family, poked his head through the door. Opening it fully and striding over to Dick when he saw that the room was occupied.

"Hey Dick, you shouldn't be here all by yourself. Come back downstairs, Alfred made hot chocolate" Dick merely let out a pained whine and hugged Tim's pillow tighter. Jason gently caressed a hand through Dick's hair "What are you doing up here anyway? I thought Alfred had put dust sheets in all the guest rooms." Dick made another pained noise into the pillow and Tim sat down of a free piece of mattress.

After a couple of minutes his face emerged "This was Tim's room" his eyes were bright red and puffy, there were tears rolling down his face, it broke Tim's heart to see his brother so upset.  
Wait-

'Was Tim's room'? 'Shouldn't be up here all by yourself'? he wasn't… Tim was here too, or does Tim not count as a person anymore? He thought that Jason and him had gotten over their pitiful spite battles and he definitely didn't think that Jason would stoop so low as to ignore him when Dick was crying in *his* room.

He ended up glowering at his brother and moving to put his arms round Dick in what he would call 'big brother cuddles'; but Dick didn't move.  
That… that wasn't like him, he was always in the mood to hug Tim, especially when Tim hugged him first.

"Dick, Dick what's wrong" he… he couldn't hear himself, his mouth was moving but nothing was coming out, which was when he turned to look at himself in his bedroom mirror and suddenly found he wished he hadn't.

Because he was pretty certain he wasn't usually this pale. But he wasn't pale, not really; it was like he had suddenly been thrown into an old black and white silent movie. It was like he was in his own plane of existence… it was like he was a ghost, but not. Because he had met ghosts, they weren't silent beings, or opaque. They were translucent and you *could* see them. You could tell they were there, and most of the time they were very vocal about it.

But he couldn't talk, he couldn't be seen, he was opaque. He was dead, but not dead… because this certainly wasn't heaven, and he will be damned if he has to spend the rest of his existence and a half-dead not ghost.

But, for once, Tim wasn't cold. He wasn't hot or warm or anything nice like that, but he wasn't cold.

He wasn't cold and he wasn't broken. He didn't feel like a rag doll, or a puppet, or a pencil that has been sharpened so much it has outlived its usefulness.

For once Tim's not angry, he's not sad or annoyed or upset, Tim's not even apathetic. Tim is nothing, feels nothing, Tim is just there.

Tim just exists and for a moment lives with no expectations, nobody to live up to, nobody to compete with, nobody to disappoint.

It was nice to just be, but it was horrible at the same time.

Because his family was hurting, and crying, and breaking down in front of him. It make his chest hurt, painfully, and there was nothing he could do to stop it, to quench that hurt and pain and anguish.

Jason to his wardrobe and the door opened again. This time the rest of his family entered his room, with Alfred carrying a steaming mug of hot chocolate, presumably for Dick. By the time the older man had set it down carefully on the bedside table Bruce had lay down on his bed and pulled Dick into a fatherly embrace just like he had always done to Tim whenever the man found him crying. Damian crawled into the crevice between the two sets of legs and Tim curled up on Bruce's other side and if he tried really hard it was almost like he was in the room with them.

Almost.

"Master Jason may I ask what you are doing?"

"Looking for Babybird's photos" his family move in unison making a variety of interested squeaks "ah here they are" Jason pulls a shoebox out of the back of Tim's wardrobe.

They spent at least four hours looking over them, smiling at forgotten memories; contemplating just how Tim was able to get so close to Batman undetected at such a young age; loosing themselves in the past until;

"That can't be all of them"

"What?"

"That can't be all Babybird's photos"

"Why not Todd?" They all looked at Jason, even Tim was wondering what he meant, that was all the photos he remembered collecting

"Where are the photos  **of**  Babybird" everyone looked stumped. It was true. Tim had made a collection of everything. Dick's first days at the manor; Jason's; Jason's first day at school; their first patrols; his pictures of their patrols; pictures of Dick's graduation; Jason's first 95% attendance certificate; Dick coming back to the manor; 'Officer Grayson'; Nightwing in Blüdhaven; Red Hood back in Gotham; Damian's arrival; Damian's first term at school; Damian as Robin; Damian and Colin; Jason at various stages of 'coming home'; as well as various pictures of Bruce and Alfred at work, rest and play.

But none of Tim.

No that was a lie, Tim was in some of the pictures, but it was always someone and Tim, Tim was never the focus of the picture and more often or not it was an accident he was in it at all.

"Father, I do not understand; what of it?" Bruce's had went to his son's hair, a guest urge that Tim found he missed dearly,

"What Jason is saying is that there are photos of everyone else here but Tim" he sounded deathly tired and sad, almost like he had given up again.

"But surly that should be expected if these are Drake's photos?" Damian was greeted with weary half smiles

"I think the problem is that none of us have photos of Tim either. We all just thought that Tim collected all of the pictures." Subconsciously they all glanced towards Alfred,

"I do have a few pictures of Master Timothy, but not as many as I would have liked"

The room returned to an uncomfortable silence, all occupants now realising that 'oh we'll get some pictures later' just wasn't good enough.

* * *

Roaming the manor in this... form was a strange freedom to Tim. He couldn't walk through walls or anything like that but h could go anywhere he wanted, just think and 'pop' there here is. It was weird at first, he ended up popping in on his family in... rather compromising situations, not that they minded, they couldn't see him, not like he could them. Sometimes it was nice to see them coping, most of the time it broke his heart.

* * *

"Bruce what's that?" Dick's excited squeak about the post and drawn him to the living room, now he wished it hadn't.

Bruce was staring at the mail, his eyes transfixed by the something on the front of the envelopes. Silence blanketed the room,

Dick seemed to know what was going on because he whispered a muffled "oh" before hug tackling their father.

"Father I demand to know where- father?... Grayson what is going on" Damian's voice mellowed to a more inquisitive tone and Tim had to give it to the kid, he'd grown up in the last few months

"They're Tim's college acceptance letters"

Oh.

His hand reached out and settled on his father's shoulder, and he could swear that for a moment Bruce could feel it, because the minute he did the man flinched almost but then abruptly left the room. Tim followed leaving Dick stopping Damian from doing the same saying Bruce "needed some time".

Tim thought that he would head to the cave for his silent brooding time, he was wrong and soon found himself in his room.

Bruce was sitting on Tim's bed head in hands and crying. Slaty tears running down his face, into his hands and dripping onto the floor.

He had never seen Bruce like this, it was completely different that when Jason died. When Jason died it was Bruce's fault, he had failed his son, he had let the Joker win, it was the first time he had lost someone he loved to his obsession, his war.

But now; Bruce couldn't blame himself for Tim's death and that was tearing him apart at the seams. He had become just another parent of a murdered child, just another family caught in the tragedy of the Earth's attraction to alien races.

It was one of the only times that they didn't have to out right lie about how someone died.

The news report had simply said "It has been confirmed that young CEO Timothy Drake-Wayne is among the dead with reports saying that he died whilst saving..." Well at least that was all Tim heard before one or more of his family got up and angrily turned it off, Jason had thrown on of his knifes through it once.

Tim had died a hero, the world knowing that didn't make it hurt any less.

"You got into college today," Bruce's voice breaking the silence of the room brought him out of his reminiscing "all of them, and I, I wish you were here. I wish you were here to be able to chose where you want to go, I wish you were here so I could watch you fret over each of them and then I wish you were here so I could help you and sit with you the entire night before you had to make your decision debating it with you before you finally settle on the one you were going to go to in the first place. I wish that we could go 'new semester' shopping with Alfred, buying you things that you might need, but then again you probably won't, I wish that you were here to plan when and how you would be coming back to go on patrol with us, or really just coming back to see us, and us to see you" he stopped for a moment, loosing composure in a way Tim had never seen before, not even with Jason

"I... I'm just so proud of you and I wish you were here to see it"

The man broke into fresh tears, and, even though he knew Bruce couldn't feel it, Tim enveloped his father in a hug, crying along with him.

But Bruce did feel something, something indescribable that made his head snap out of his hands and flinch round to 'look' at Tim, seeing nothing at first, but catching something in the mirror, something that immediately made him get up and stare as he took the form in, like a character from a silent movie, smiling lightly and sheepishly waving;

"Tim?"


	2. A Trick Of The Light

_No_

_No. No_

_No. No. NO!_

The man blinked, scrunched his eyes tight, and opened them wider than ever before. It was a trick of the light, a hallucination, a dream. Tim was dead, gone, _gonegonegone_ , and was never coming back. There were no evil aliens with time distorting Omega Beams; no inter-dimensional, multiverse altering crisis; there was nothing but a small dead  _cold_  body in a casket six feet under.

He’s imagining things, Tim’s not there, never there in the corner of his eye, staring at him in the mirror.

_You’re just imagining things, seeing what you want to see._

Because Bruce wants Tim… no he  ** _needs_**  Tim. Needs to hold him close, to touch, to feel, to reassure himself that he’s all there,  that he’s not crazy, that this has all been a dream, that Tim’s not dead, just on business somewhere.

He needs Tim’s insight, his endless intelligence and wisdom, he just needs.

Bruce needs to be needed. Because Tim needed  _him_  like he needed Tim. Not in the ever present parental role, though he wishes he could have been that for Tim, but in the silent presence, that reassuring body in the room who thinks the same as you, who knows what you’re thinking, that’s so in tune with you that you can go a whole night without talking and have no problems at all.

So he turns his back on the  _ghostspiritshadow_ mirror and does something he hasn’t in years, since Jason died.

He curls up on his son’s bed and cries.

_I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry_

Tim may have been his son but he was never Tim’s father. He missed that chance, because Tim was never his responsibility, he had a family; Bruce wasn’t needed… until he was and he never stepped up, not really. And yet Tim stuck with him through  _everything_ , Tim brought him back from the brink of insanity after chasing him through time, only for Bruce to abandon him again and again and again.

Because everyone else just seemed to be more pushy? Come first? Be more important?

Does it really matter anymore; Tim is dead, and he can’t make excuses.

There are no excuses to give.

He holds double standards when it comes to Tim.

He trusted Dick when it came to Tony Zucco, did he not trust Tim to make the right decision when it came to Boomerang? Or was it just because Tim came to him at the beginning. No tragedy, no orphan, just a little boy wanting to help his hero. And so Bruce made him work harder, pushed him more, was colder, and didn’t praise him even when he exceeded both his predecessors. Just because Tim was expected to always be better, to be perfect, to not be allowed the oh so human characteristic of having flaws. Because Tim was not his son by choice or blood, he was just some teenager who moved in next door, a useful tool, commodity, that Bruce could take out at night and then put back in its box during the day and forget about.

And forget he did on more than one occasion.

 And, as he looks back, evaluates, judges himself and his decisions; it seems that just because Tim’s smarter and probably better at strategic planning than all of them put together meant that he didn’t get to make mistakes. He didn’t get to be a seventeen year old kid just because Bruce said so.

How was that fair? How could he make that demand of anyone? But especially Tim; who just never gets a break from tragedy or disaster.

He starts crying again.  _When did he stop?_  Words flow out of his mouth, but he doesn’t hear them. They’re probably along the lines of “I’m sorry, forgive me, I failed you.”

“It’s my fault you’re dead”

Because it is, this isn’t him blaming himself over some contrived thought that he might have been able physically stop it.

It’s his fault that Tim has… had- some sort of self-sacrificing protocol engrained on his brain that told him that everyone else is more important than him. “Because Bruce doesn’t treat me like he did them, or he does Damian, because Bruce pushes me harder, wants me to get it perfect more often than them before he lets me move on to the next skill” things like that, the small things that add up, that cumulate into Bruce no longer knowing his third son. Things that coalesce into him seeing more of his ‘staying away from Gotham for the next few monts to take down some large drug cartels’ older brother in one week than he does his heir and co-worker who is on the same floor as him in Wayne Tower in a month.

Things that Bruce never got to apologise for.

And never will.

_Because Tim is dead, gone and never coming back._

-

Dick leaves it a few hours before trying to find Bruce. Well, not find, more ‘attempt to talk to’. Or talk at. Because in his heart of hearts, from the moment he held his little brother’s lifeless body, he knew this day was going to come.

The day when they were all reminded that Tim had his whole life ahead of him, that Tim really was smart enough to get into MIT, Harvard and even Cambridge in the UK… the day when they’d all have to face the fact that that life was now gone.

He finds Bruce still in Tim’s room, lying on top of the bed sheets, tear streaked face and heavily breathing. At some point he was probably hyperventilating, so Dick stroked large slow circles into his back, as though that would sooth all the pain, as though it would make Tim come back.

“Hey, Dad, it’s okay; I’ve got you. We’ll get through this, all of us, together” Because he had made mistakes also concerning being forced to deal with grief alone. “He loved you, like no one else in the world.” Because he knew what Bruce was thinking about, because he’s Bruce Wayne, the Goddamned Batman, the Dark Knight, the man who thinks he can’t be a good father. “You were his father”

Dick doesn’t catch Bruce staring intently at the mirror on the other side of the room; he also doesn’t catch the figure in it mouthing desperately. But he does catch Bruce’s sudden movements and open mouthed shocked expression as he sat up in shock and whispers;

“Tim’s alive”


End file.
